[ritchiebaby]

Yet another exciting day on the road and another rider putting the cat among the pigeons. After delivering Chris Froome in pole position yesterday and then overtaking him with a strong finish, Mikel Landa gave another strong performance to be at the forefront again. He broke away with Albert Contador and the pair were joined by Warren Barguil, who was involved in most moves to dominate the KOTM jersey, and Nairo Quintana to keep their advantage all the way to the line. After being involved in breakaways right from the start, Frenchman Barguil won the sprint from Quintana, Contador and Landa for a home win on Bastille Day. Simon Yates led Dan Yates home 1m 39s later with the Top 4 in a group a further 9 seconds behind.

With no change in the leaders, today's big winner was Mikel Landa who now lies in 5th place only 1m 9s behind Fabio Aru. Both Quintana 2m 7s down and Contador at 5m 22s fought their way into the Top Ten. I'm intrigued that we could be seeing a Wiggins/Froome scenario where the No1 could  be in danger of being challenged by his domestique.

There were a further 2 withdrawals today - Jacob Fuglsang, who has ridden with a fractured wrist on 2 days, and Artur Vichot of FDJ, who have now lost over half their team, a Tour to be forgotten.

We return to a more sedate day tomorrow, with the Tour heading for the Massif Central with a stage starting in Blagnac and ending in Rodez, featuring an early sprint and 2 Category 3 climbs before an apparently innocuous uncategorised climb and a downhill stretch and a short sharp uphill sprint finish. This is now becoming very difficult to predict, whith so many riders involved in different races within each stage.  Team Sky can now ride in 2 ways - today's where they can attack from the front or as before when they dominate the front of the peleton. My rider for tomorrow would be Michael Matthews, who must attack to have any chance of challenging for the Green Jersey IF he can survive the climbs, otherwise Greg Van Armaret.